Libya's anti-Kadhafi rebels no democrats, report claims

The anti-Kadhafi uprising in Libya is neither democratic nor spontaneous, according to a delegation which visited the country last month.Their report, published by two French-based thinktanks, claims the rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) wants to impose Islamic sharia law and that the uprising is motivated by regional resentment and vindictiveness.

While condemning Moamer Kadhafi’s regime, the group says that “true democrats” are a

The group, organised by French thinktanks Ciret-AVT and CF2R, visited Tripoli and Tripolitania, under the control of Moamer Kadhafi’s forces, and rebel-controlled Benghazi and Cyrenaica in April. It included former French intelligence chief Yves Bonnet, former Algerian minister Saida Ben Habyles and Franco-Bulgarian writer Roumania Ougartchinska.

The democrats are working alongside monarchists, radical Islamists and Kadhafi regime defectors, like the council’s chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil, a former justice minister who twice confirmed the death sentences passed on five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor for allegedly deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV.

And, the observers point out, only 13 of the 31 TNC members’ names have been made public, with representatives of the west of the country, most of which is under Kadhafi’s

Despite its dubious past, the Kadhafi regime may have been trying to reform, according to the report, thanks largely to Kadhafi’s son Saif al-Islam. It points out that a new constitution was being planned with the help of well-known intellectuals who were members of the Kadhafi Foundation, including US academics Francis Fukuyama, Joseph Nye and Benjamin Barber and the UK’s Anthony Giddens.

control, kept secret for “debatable” reasons.

The movement is “an armed uprising of the east of the country … which tries to present itself as part of the Arab ‘spring’, with which it has nothing in common”, their report says.

The report seems most concerned at the threat of establishing a base for Islamists in the region.

Article I of the CNT's National Charter states that sharia should be the basis of the country's laws and the report claims that the Libyan Islamic Combatant Group and Al-Qaeda both claim to have fought against Kadhafi's forces during the uprising.

The revolt has inspired three to four million migrant workers to flee the country, “at a time when their own countries are suffering a high level of unemployment”, it says, adding that “all blacks in eastern Libya were considered to be mercenaries in the service of Kadhafi”.

And it dubs the Western intervention in the country “adventurist”, threatening to destabilise Africa and the Middle East by providing a base for radical Islamism in the region.

Nato air strikes have hit a hospital in Mizda, wounding about 40 civilians and Korean doctors, and other non-military targets in Misrata and Ziaouia, the report adds.

THE BATTLE FOR LIBYA

Accusing France, the UK and the US of going much further than the UN resolution authorising air strikes allowed, the delegation says that secret services were operating in the country before the motion was passed and continued to do so afterwards.

France, in particular, could lose business and influence in Libya if Kadhafi is not overthrown, thanks to an “exaggeration” of its role in supporting the rebels both in Paris and Beghazi, it claims.

Comments (7)

Anyone with even a little knowledge of history can recognize the Libyan 'revolt' as a classic regime-change insurgency financed and orchestrated by foreign interests (France, U.K., U.S., Saudi Arabia...). To cite one notorious example, this tactic is how the U.S. gained the Panama canal.

Why would excluding the so called Islamists be considered democratic?Or shouldn't be the Libyans people given the chance to decide who should run their contry after 41 years of total control by one man?By the way who is really behind those so called 2 thinktanks?Just their names may give some hints?

Why not replace grandma in the Uk she have been a dictator in England longer than Quadaffi have been alive. A king or Queen is a dictator by anyother name. And many other of the Euorpean nations have these dictatorships over the people and they are riding on the neck of the people let us get rid of thim. The EU Dictators and their children have been living to long on the back of the people.

Everyone knew that Sayf al-Islam's efforts to reform failed miserably. What do you want as evidence? the closure of his media outlets such as Al-Libiyah TV (which was relaunched only after the rebellion)? the eviction of journalists of Libya Press agency to London? the arrest of 14 journalists from Good Morning Benghazi radio talk show? or is it the press law that has been published for discussion in 2007 and remained shelved on the web without any step forward? The constitution project was a farce and only uttered by Sayf al-Islam after he returned from the UK. There were also plans for new penal code, trade union law, civil society law, but they were all buried quickly after the face-off between Sayf and Moutassem. Sayf may have tried to do something, but he failed, because his father and his elder brother Moutassem wanted everything to stay the same after Qadhafi's death.

As for the NTC's charter, well, in effect, laws in all Arab countries include elements from the Shariah in addition to French and British articles. Issues like divorce, inheritance, maternity are always addressed by Islamic law, while labour disputes, traffic, common crime are covered by the former. So please enough of this scare-mongering of the Sharia law.

Time will tell whether the TNC is undemocratic, but I am not sure that Gaddafi was the epitome of democracy in North Africa.

The reports findings are hardly surprising. While the formation of the National Transitional Council (of Libya) was announced in the city of Benghazi on 27 February, 2011, the NTC's website's NS History indicates 7 changes on 6 unique name servers over 3 years, its IP History 6 changes on 6 unique name servers over 3 years, and its Whois History 22 records archived since 2008-01-21. So much for that spontaneous uprising. (Too bad the report doesn't mention BHL's role; after all BHL has a history of falsifying facts, e.g. 2008 South Ossetia War was his most recent example (cf. "BHL n'a pas vu toutes ses « choses vues » en Géorgie" ), before his new Libyan show.